Australians should prepare for more anti-terror raids: AFP chief

Australians should prepare for more counterterrorism raids as big as the recent 800-strong police raids in Sydney and Brisbane, the Australian Federal Police's counterterrorism chief has said.

Federal police Assistant Commissioner Neil Gaughan said police did not engage in "overkill" in September's Operation Appleby raids that involved 800 police officers, but led to only two people being charged.

"What we will see now is more raids like we saw in Sydney because the environment has changed," Mr Gaughan said.

"The paradigm has changed such that we will be forced to react much quicker than what we previously have, and I think the community will see more of this where we will do a large number of execution of search warrants and probably only one or two arrests."

The comments came during a terrorism-focused Q&A in which Attorney-General George Brandis said he did not regret stating that "people have a right to be bigots" at the height of debate about watering down the Racial Discrimination Act.

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"If you believe in freedom of speech, you've got to defend the freedom of speech of everyone," he said.

During the episode, filmed in Bankstown in western Sydney, Senator Brandis faced tough and at times hostile questioning from the leaders of Sydney's Muslim community.

Attorney-General George Brandis: "This is not a law about journalists, this is no more about journalists than drink-driving is about journalists." Photo: ABC

Several members of the audience said they believed Prime Minister Tony Abbott's use of the phrase "Team Australia" had created a divide between Muslims and non-Muslims, and that the Islamic community was being unfairly demonised.

Senator Brandis said that Muslims should not be stereotyped but that it must be acknowledged that some "wicked" extremist preachers were trying to ensnare young Muslim men to fight for Islamic State and other terrorist groups in the Middle East.

Senator Brandis also attempted to ease concerns about the impact of recent anti-terrorism laws that could lead to journalists being jailed for up to 10 years for reporting on ASIO special intelligence operations.

Senator Brandis suggested that journalists who publish Edward-Snowden-style leaks would not be liable for prosecution - the first time he has made a distinction between the way the laws would apply to journalists and whistleblowers.

"This is not a law about journalists, this is no more about journalists than drink-driving is about journalists," Senator Brandis said.

"If it is a journalist covering what a whistleblower disclosed, then the relevant conduct is the conduct constituting the disclosure, so if the event is already disclosed by someone else and a journalist merely reports that which has already been disclosed, as it was by Snowden, then the provision would not be attracted."

Senator Brandis said that new "metadata" laws requiring telecommunications companies to store customer records would only be used for the "highest levels" of crime such as terrorism, transnational crime and paedophilia - not the illicit downloading of movies and music.

Senator Brandis' performance as the sole Q&A panellist drew a rave review from a usual critic of the government: Palmer United Party Senator Jacqui Lambie.